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Are We In the Frying Pan?

Posted by HOLLY IN CINCINNATI, Copy Editor in Politics, Science & Technology, Society.
Apr 3rd, 2008 | Comments

Tierneylab Blog at The New York Times: Are Carbon Cuts Just A Fantasy?

What if there’s no way to cut greenhouse emissions enough to make a real difference?

That’s the question raised by a commentary in Nature arguing that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been too optimistic in its projections for the technological possibilities of reducing greenhouse emissions. Their calculations are called “a bombshell” in a separate news article in Nature about the paper. My colleague Andy Revkin analyzes it at DotEarth. The commentary was written by the political scientist Roger Pielke Jr., the climatologist Tom Wigley, and the economist Christopher Green.

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Jim_Satterfield

Tierney misrepresents the article even though he does interview one of the authors. Never forget the source. Tierney is not a scientist and is in every article I've seen of his on the issue either denying warming, denying humans are responsible for any of it or denying that we can do anything about it. In fact the primary thrust of the commentary in Nature seems to be a criticism of the IPCC for apparently assuming that the technology to help reduce our production of carbon will happen without policies that encourage it. Here is the last paragraph of the commentary.

There is no question about whether technological innovation is necessary — it is. The question is, to what degree should policy focus directly on motivating such innovation? The IPCC plays a risky game in assuming that spontaneous advances in technological innovation will carry most of the burden of achieving future emissions reductions, rather than focusing on creating the conditions for such innovations to occur.

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